


Ólórë

by mc_dude



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: As if it weren't painful enough, Gen, M/M, Mild Gore, ice metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 06:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19290031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mc_dude/pseuds/mc_dude
Summary: Ólórë (noun)a shared dream; a mingling of two fëar in Irmo’s domain





	Ólórë

**Author's Note:**

> this was before fingon arrived in Beleriand and adopted a Sindarin name, so he knows Maedhros by his Quenya names only.
> 
> Ólórë is taken from a combination of ósanwe (ósanwe-kenta gave me this idea, mental contact undaunted by distance?? hello?? break my heart jrrt) and lórë. Loosely translated it should mean something like 'together dream'.

**Ólórë** \- _noun_.

a shared dream; a mingling of two fëar in Irmo’s domain.

 

–––

 

Threadbare cloth flapping in the wind. A child’s cry, quickly stifled by a mother’s hush. The creaking of ice against ice, the tinkling of frozen water over floating shore, the ragged breathing of his people as they huddle for what warmth can be found; familiar sounds, but not a comfort.

They cannot judge hours from days, days from weeks, weeks from months. There is nothing to guide them save the cold light of Varda’s creations, and a candle’s flame cannot survive in the harsh winds of the utmost North. They rest when they cannot go on, and go on when all logic bids them stop, for they must. The mountains grow larger behind: a gate shutting closed on the only home they’ve ever known. They cannot go back.

Findekáno shifts uncomfortably, willing his thoughts to settle so he can get the rest he desperately needs. His entire shift he was scouting ahead, his wrists raw from where the rope line pulled tight around him, face red and sore from the ice crystals clawing at his skin. Every muscle aches, every breath coupled with a shiver and a throb of pain in his fur-covered feet. He stares at the ceiling of their tent with pursed lips. The sound of his sister’s snores are soft in his ear. Turukáno shifts restlessly against his back, Arakáno behind him. Itarillë lies between them all, still and silent, as warm as she can be in this desolate place. He tries not to think of the last member of their sleeping group, forever lost beneath the Ice.

 _Do not think of that now_ , he pleads to himself, taking a deep breath and forcing his eyes to defocus. _Think of anything else_ , _something benign._ The scent of bread from the baker down the street from his father’s apartments in Tirion, the cry of a seagull as it flies in from beyond the sea– _no, don’t think of the sea_ – the feel of his horse as he races over the plains of Formenos, the wind in his hair, the warm light of Laurelin flush upon his skin; he whispers to his horse _faster, faster_ and laughs as they speed off across the field. He turns his head, cheeks sore from smiling so wide, a taunt on his lips–

A flash of bright copper catches in the corner of his vision.

The tent snaps back into focus, breath stolen from his lungs. Do not think of him _, do not–_

“Go to sleep, Finno,” Írissë whispers to him, one eye squinting at him in the dark. Findekáno glares at her; as if it is that simple. He opens his mouth to say so, but Itarillë mumbles between them, shifting in her sleep. Findekáno forces himself still, chastened.

He focuses on the eerie whistling of the wind, the minute rocking of the ice beneath them, and thinks not of anything red, nor of bad decisions once made, or of a trust misplaced.

Exhaustion finally claims him, and he slips into his slumber with a sigh of relief.

Anything to escape the cold, even for a few hours.

 

–––

 

When he awakens, it is to the scent of salt mixed with rust. Findekáno slumps, weary and guilt-ridden.

Alqualondë, again. Not even in his dreams can he get a moment’s peace.

He had visited the city many times in his youth, to sit upon the docks and stare out at the sea, to dangle his feet above the waves and wonder of the shores beyond. The Shipwrights were a peaceful people, unconcerned with the politics and ongoings of the nobility, and showed neither favor nor scorn towards a scion of the house of Finwë. Here he had learned to tie knots that would not unravel unless commanded, had caught his first fish with his bare hands, had collected shells on the shore for the sheer delight of it, unburdened and without expectation.

Now its pearled domes are torn asunder, its white walls stained brown with old blood. Bodies litter the docks that he once walked without care or consequence, their raiments soiled with gore. He has no choice but to move forward through the carnage. He knows from experience: if he does not keep moving they will come to him, their bodies rent and mangled, grasping at him with bloodied fingers as they cry out for a mercy he cannot, _did not,_ give.

The once clear blue water is stained a dark red, just visible in the dim light of the stars. The city looks different in their light, without Telperion to reflect upon its splendor. Lonely and diminished, forever tarnished by the evil deeds that took place in its streets, upon its docks and on its shores. The Eldar have nothing but time until the ending of the World, but still he wonders if it will ever recover. He steps over another crumpled body, very carefully not looking at its face; he knows it has none.

With all that his people have lost, he is almost surprised that the death around him still affects him so; but then again, there is very little blood, on the Ice. When his people die, it is not by sword or bow, but the silent gasp of a body sinking under the waves, a strangled scream as they slip into an unforeseen crevasse, a quiet whimper as they shiver their last breath.

The planks creak beneath his feet as he reaches the middle of the dock. In the distance, their golden beaks still glinting in the fading light, swan ships: the pride of the Teleri people, burnt and broken, the blood of their makers stained against the polished wood, and for nothing. There’s a huddled mass at the dock’s end, and he starts forward once again, already hearing the ragged breaths of the slain not far behind.

It’s an elf, he realises as he gets nearer, kneeling on the wood and bent over a dark shadow. Still alive, perhaps: a last survivor to cast their judgement upon him. He will accept it, because he must. He continues forward.

The clouds part for a moment, and the starlight catches on the elf’s hair.

It’s red.

He halts mid-stride, first in shock, and then the anger crashes over him like a half-frozen wave against bare skin.

It’s rare upon the Ice to have any energy to dream at all, any measure of comfort stripped away by piercing winds, gnawed at by endless hunger, crushed beneath the fathomless depths of Ulmo’s domain. To find him here amongst the ruins they created– in the wreckage that he had made, for _him_ – it makes him want to laugh. Or perhaps to scream. _Of course_ , he thinks, with no small amount of hysteria. _Of course he’s here._

He doesn’t remember the last time they’ve shared a dream. So much was fractured between their families after Fëanáro, Darkness take him, pointed a sword at his father’s chest. The glow of fires burning on distant shores only served to shatter what little remained.

It cannot be a true mingling of fëa, not a real joining of dreams. His thoughts might have strayed towards him in bitterness and anger before he slept, but Maitimo would have had to have been thinking of him as well before he fell asleep for them to connect like this as they once did, and after everything that’s happened, the notion is almost laughable.

Just his mind, then, reminding him of what he sacrificed his people’s future for: a murderer and a traitor, unfit to carry Finwë’s name.

His feet step lightly over decaying wood, eyes fixed on the shadow of Maitimo’s hunched form. There’s a body beside him, he notes as he approaches. Maitimo’s sword lies by his side, its edge dark with blood. Of course.

 _An opportunity_ , he thinks. A reprieve from the endless cycle of unanswered questions, of hours of asking _why, why, why?_ He can take his vengeance here, and prepare for the real vengeance to come. Maitimo will receive no quarter from him, for none does he deserve. He steels himself.

“Nelyo,” he calls, hard and flat.

Maitimo doesn’t move, his head still bowed in some mockery of faux-penance. His shoulders seem thinner in the dimmed starlight, clothes fraying and stained. He says nothing, barely even breathes. The wind ruffles the air between them, silent and unrepentant, and the anger wells up in his throat, choking him with its ferocity.

“Nothing to say to me, even still?” he spits, fists clenching as he forces himself closer. Maitimo flinches back, dropping something to the ground. The body’s hand, he realises, but it’s not just a body: his own face stares skyward, eyes glazed and dark braids stained with blood. He’s so furious he can barely think, even in this dream world he’s conjured. How dare he, how _dare_ he–

“Stop looking at that, you coward, I’m right _here_!” he shouts, grabbing his shoulder and forcing him to turn. Maitimo falls back without a sound, eyes lowered, and finally he can look upon the man for whom he sacrificed so much, who clutched his hands tight with the waves lapping at their feet and whispered a desperate promise into his ear, and who broke that promise not hours later, abandoning him on distant shores for the sake of his father’s madness.

Findekáno stares.

Deep gouges run from eyebrow to jaw, across once enviously-smooth skin, down the contours of his neck. The bone below his right eye is sunken, as if smashed inward by some blunt force, and the skin covering it is marred and burnt. His namesake lies limp and tangled around his face, and his skin is sallow, his face so thin his cheekbones catch on the starlight and give him the appearance of one who is dead. His anger falters.

“Russo?” he asks, not quite believing it. He takes another step forward. Maitimo flinches and clenches his eyes shut. He’s trembling, he realises. Afraid, perhaps, but he’s only ever seen Maitimo fearful once before, in this very spot, fresh Teleri blood on the end of his sword, so he cannot be sure.

Afraid of _him_ , he realises with a sickening lurch.

 _Good_ , some small part of him cries out. _He has betrayed us all, is this not what he deserves?_ Quickly the thought is stifled, overtaken by nausea. His knees hit the deck. The body is still there, eerie and unseeing. He ignores it.

“Maitimo,” he calls, horrified, grabbing at his thin wrist and dragging it away from his face. Maitimo tries to draw away, but his movement is slow and overly-cautious. He has not yet met his gaze, still braced as if for impact.

 _Why would my mind choose to conjure him this way?_ he wonders, sickened. He is angry, yes, and rightfully so, but this– this is not what he wanted. He doesn’t want to see Maitimo wounded and afraid, emaciated and diminished, covered in grime save for where old tears have washed it away. Bile rises in the back of his throat as he runs his hand down Maitimo’s bone-thin arm. There are scars even here, twisting around puckered flesh, as if lashed and then stabbed.

He’s grateful, then, that it’s not a true shared dream between them. Grateful and horrified, for he did not know his mind was capable of something so hateful and cruel.

“Russo,” he tries again, sliding his palm down to his hand. Maitimo snatches his fingers away, curling them in a tight fist and holding them against his chest. He takes a deep breath, and looks up. The blankness in his eyes almost undoes him.

He doesn’t want to see him like this.

“Findekáno,” he finally acknowledges, voice unfathomably weary, as if the weight of all Arda has settled upon his shoulders. His voice sounds strange and thin, a mere rasp in the quiet sea breeze. Maitimo glances to the body on the dock, and then lets his eyes fall closed once more.

He had wanted– what had he wanted? _A fight_ , he recalls in dismay. To extract his vengeance unhindered by the confines of reality. The water has already been stained red, a little more will not make a difference.

 _No_ , he insists, disgusted by himself. _I did not want a fight, only an explanation_. Not _this_ , not Russandol beaten and defeated, waiting to accept his judgement.

“This is not real,” Findekáno states, insists, voice shaking. It could not be real, it could _not_ –

“Of course not,” Maitimo agrees, eyes still trained on his doppleganger’s body. “You cannot be here. I killed you.”

Findekáno bristles, horror pushed aside. “You did not, however much it might have pleased you,” he retorts. “I am still very much alive.”

“ _Pleased me_ ,” Maitimo repeats, whispering the words with a frown. His posture is strange, like he’s trying to make himself small. Always he has had to crane his neck skyward to look at Maitimo; it’s unnerving now that he must crouch down to see his face, knees pressed to the water-logged planks. He has to remind himself again that this is not real.

“You do not deny it,” Findekáno states, voice cracking on the end despite his efforts to remain impassive. A thousand years of friendship between them, centuries of easy trust and companionship, despite both their father’s misgivings. Years of huddling close in the last mingling before the new day, whispering doubts and worries in each other’s ears and taking comfort in a shared affection. All that history, tossed away as if worthless.

Had it meant nothing at all?

The wind picks up, rattling the clasps of his braids. Maitimo sways forward under its force, silent. He has never seen anyone look so tired, not even his own father upon the Ice. The circles under his eyes are bruised a dark purple, set so deeply into his skin they appear a permanent feature. How can he imagine him this way, when he has never seen anyone like this before?

_What does it matter?_

“What has happened to you?” he finally asks, his anger buried under the weight of his own sudden weariness. He is peripherally curious as to the excuse his mind will give. Has Maitimo been betrayed by his followers who have seen Fëanáro’s madness, perhaps? Or captured by his father’s command? What is a fitting punishment, he wonders, for the one who left him behind? What cruel torment has his mind imagined for one who was once closer to him than all others?

“What I deserve,” Maitimo replies at once, automatic and sure. He flexes his fingers with that same confused look on his face. “Will you not take your justice?” he questions, eyes flickering towards his own. “That is how this usually goes.”

Findekáno grows cold. “Are you saying _I_ have done this to you?”

Maitimo laughs, and it’s a vicious sound, cold and hopeless. “Must we continue this farce?” he asks. “I grow weary of your games.”

“This is no game,” Findekáno spits, nails biting painfully into his palms. For him to make light of this situation, for him to _laugh_ in the face of what he has done to him– “What are you saying?”

“I will not indulge you as you take his form, as you speak with his voice, as you try to corrupt his memory,” Maitimo says, voice dark with intent. “I will face Findekáno's judgement in the Halls, not here. Not from you."

"You will face it sooner than you think, for I am not dead," Findekáno snarls, chest tight and eyes hot. "Every day we move closer to Endor's shores. You and your father will pay for your betrayal."

Maitimo sighs, rolling his eyes. "Now we're back to my father again? Have you run out of ideas, creature?"

"Is this a joke to you?" Findekáno shouts, shaking and raw, aching with the need to lash out. Maitimo flinches again, jaw clenched, his arms curled protectively around his stomach. He's hurt, he realises, that was what he was hiding before. There's blood on his tunic, both old and new, and something is off about the placement of his shoulder, as if his collarbone has twisted the wrong way. Findekáno grabs his arm again, too fast for Maitimo to lurch away, and stares at the way his fingers fit around it with ease.

He cannot have imagined this. He has grown hard and cruel, he knows, he _knows_ , but he is not capable of this– not capable of this brutality.

A sound in the water. Hands, grasping out of the depths of the sea. A moan in the night; the sound of a child crying. Findekáno closes his eyes, stomach sinking into the planks below. The truth settles over him like a warm shroud on a hot summer’s night, stifling and without relief.

He is more than capable.

He’s done this before, to those whose names he did not know, whose faces he did not see– just desperate movement in the night and a sword through soft flesh, the gurgling noise of blood spilling from split lips. Is it any better, that he did not call them friend, before? They are dead by his hand, all the same.

The water is red, but it is also thick.

“I did this to you,” he whispers, eyes wet as he slides his hand down over scarred skin. There’s fresh blood trickling down the side of Maitimo’s face. The smell makes him gag.

This is who he has become. He can never repent for what he’s done, for the terror he inflicted on innocents. For drawing Eldar blood on the end of his sword and condemning his people to the Ice. Every one of their deaths is on his hands, on his conscience, on his blade, for it was he who leapt to Maitimo’s aid, unthinking and brash, and his men, loyal and trusting, followed his command without question.

He had wanted vengeance, before, had wanted to make Maitimo feel his own pain, with weapon or fist. When had he become so bloodthirsty? When had his first instinct turned to violence? He has become as cold and empty as the Ice, a mere husk of his former self. He forces himself to look at Maitimo, chest tight with grief.

Maitimo’s eyes are narrowed in suspicion, darting over his face like he’s suddenly not sure who he is. _How dare he_ , that voice inside him insists once again, weakly. He ignores it. He does not recognize himself, either.

“Findekáno did nothing, as you well know,” Maitimo says, hesitating. He’s testing for something, but for what, Findekáno knows not. He swallows, fingers light over the fraying edges of Maitimo’s threadbare tunic. There are welted bruises around his wrists, the skin scraped raw, the wounds blistering.

“It is my dream,” he says, chest tight with guilt. “So it must have been me.”

 _Weak and cruel, a blight upon his people_. What hope have they in their plight? He has damned them all. If it were not for him, Itarillë would still have a mother, and his brother might not be caught half-way between life and death, desperate to fade but unable to leave.

Maitimo pries his hand from his arm, staring at his trembling fingers in confusion. The tips are dull and grey. They had quickly learned Eru’s first are not as invulnerable as once believed, the frost as deadly as any fire. How naïve they had been! His fault. It’s _his_ fault–

“Findekáno,” Maitimo says, voice lilting like a question. His eyes are still pinched around the middle, unreadable in the dark. “You have done nothing to me,” he says slowly, as if explaining some intricacy of his father’s Tengwar to him back in Tirion, overly-enunciated and precise. Findekáno opens his mouth to protest–

“And this is not your dream,” Maitimo finishes, and Findekáno’s heart leaps into his throat.

“It must be,” he insists, looking at Maitimo’s mangled form with horror. _It cannot be real._ His fingers tighten around Maitimo’s own. “How can it not be, when you are here before me as you are?”

“ _As I am_ ,” Maitimo mumbles, looking down at himself. He blinks, as if he did not notice the rags he wears, the blood and bruises that stain his skin. Maitimo’s free hand plucks at the tattered remains of the breeches he wears, unseeing. Anxiety starts to well in his chest, then, and doubt.

"What has happened to you, Russo?" he asks again, voice cracking. "You're not actually here, are you?" He turns Maitimo’s fingers over in his hand, noting for the first time the missing fingernails, the bloodied nailbeds. He chokes back bile in his throat. "Tell me this isn't a true mingling," he pleads, heartbeat loud in his ears.

Maitimo stares at the hand in his own, with that pinched look, still. His lips part, to confirm his beliefs, surely–

There's a sound from somewhere in the distance, like footsteps in a hallway. Maitimo goes very still.

“What is it?” Findekáno whispers, glancing behind them, around them, and then above. A star blooms overhead, and then fades into the darkness; the beginning of a cascade, their light disappearing one by one. There’s something in the air, as well: something charged and ominous, like the stillness of the sky before a storm. The hairs on the back of his head stand straight. Goosebumps erupt on his skin.

More footsteps, the scraping of metal against stone, something dragging heavily along the floor. Maitimo glances at him suddenly, startled, as if seeing him for the first time.

"Finno?" he asks, voice as small as he's ever heard it, eyes wide with disbelief. Panic seeps into Findekáno’s lungs, seawater pooling in his throat, choking him. _A nightmare, just a nightmare,_ he assures himself, _it cannot be real_. The noise grows louder, and Maitimo grabs at him then, desperate fingers twisting into his furs. "Finno," he says again, incredulous and pained, the sound halfway between his name and a sob.

His appearance shifts, then, the gouges on his face growing dark with blood, the burn glossy and peeling. His hair darkens with filth and grime, and what little muscle he had melts from his frame like smoke on the wind. The fingers in his furs turn twisted and bent, and the marks around his wrists begin to weep with blood. Findekáno grasps at him, horrified.

“This is not real," he whispers, brushing the filthy strands back behind a ragged ear and biting his lip at the swath of bruises and scars revealed beneath his fingers. “It cannot be real, it _can’t_ be.”

The sound of chains, of a door opening and Maitimo shudders, sinking his face into his furs with a muffled cry. Findekáno pulls him into his arms, dismayed at how light he feels, how fragile. Something rumbles: thunder in the distance. A storm begins to form out over the sea, wisps of blackened cloud shaped like hands that stretch towards Maitimo’s back. Findekáno curses and drags them backward away from the churning waves that begin to seep over the edge of the dock. The world shifts around him, blurring and twisting, and he stumbles.

"Russo, wait, do not wake–"

 _Well, well, what is this?_ A voice in the darkness, filled with malice, and with power.

Maitimo jolts off his chest, eyes wide with fear. The darkness begins to coalesce, pulling towards the middle like– like an eye, lidless and foul.

“Wake up, Finno,” Maitimo pleads, trembling. “Wake _up_ , he cannot find you here, he _cannot–_ ”

“I will not leave you,” Findekáno insists, reaching for him once more. Of that much, he is certain: he will not let this darkness have him, will not let him become another body on the docks. It’s not within him to abandon him here, nor anywhere, in truth, for his heart has always been foolish, and no matter how many times it is broken and betrayed, he cannot force it to let Maitimo go.

“You must, you _must_ ,” Maitimo says, shoving to his feet and glancing about, desperate. Findekáno hurries after him, adrenaline pumping. There are swords about, he’s sure, maybe even his own, and in this realm of dreaming he is unbound by the means of his mortal hröa. He can fight whatever darkness has come to claim Russandol from him.

A flash of lightning, the rattle of chains.

Something in Maitimo’s face settles, expression going hard. He turns to Findekáno and looks at him for a moment, as if memorizing the contours of his face, and then tugs him into his arms. Findekáno clutches him close, startled. Maitimo’s hand digs into the muscles of his back, the other tangling in his hair, twisting around one of his braids. He hears him inhale once, nose pressed by his ear, and then he tenses, and– shoves him away.

Findekáno stumbles backward with a shout, tripping over his body on the docks, and then he’s falling. The last thing he sees before he hits the water is Maitimo sinking back to his knees, eyes clenched closed in defeat as the dark hands twist around his neck.

 

–––

 

He wakes with a gasp, tears frozen on his cheeks.

He does not dream of Russandol again.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: mc-dude.tumblr.com
> 
> send me prompts for mine heart is weak and cannot resist


End file.
